


vita altera

by oddblogger



Category: Original Work
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Psychological Trauma, Recovered Memories, but kinda lowkey??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2018-10-08 06:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10380054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddblogger/pseuds/oddblogger
Summary: Cyrus has never met another human, as far as they can remember. Their entire life was within the whitewashed walls of their "room". Until the day that they break out and meets Ari, a sweet kid that they accidentally knock over in an alleyway.OROne of the many backstories of my two favorite characters to RP with.





	1. Chucked Into the Metaphorical Sink Called Life

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if this chapter is kinda short………so much to do, so little time *sighs*

Life is filled to the brim with shit. Whoever told you that it was some sort of journey where you figure out new things did one of two things. A: they fucking lied to you, or B: they’re naïve. Honestly, it’s probably the latter. Life is not some fun little hike through the woods, along a beaten path where you found that colorful rock that you keep on your windowsill. Life is closer to a filthy sink in a grimy house. Broken dishes and glassware swimming around in the murky water and roaches crawling out of its drain. And it’s overflowing. Your job; to keep yourself afloat in the disgusting pool of water you call your life. Whoever came up with my life must have really had a laugh as they chucked me into that metaphorical sink. Because here I am, a so-called “self respecting adult”, kneeling in a puddle of what I hope is just mud, bawling like some child whose candy was just stolen from right underneath their nose, getting snot and tears _everywhere_ as my face keeps on contorting into some sort of grotesque high exposure image of someone screaming, covered in someone else’s blood.  


And let me tell you, whoever the fuck told you that when people die, they look like they are sleeping was _definitely_ a fucking liar. If he looked like he was asleep, then why does he keep holding his fucking hand up to caress my face like that? If he was so goddamned peaceful, why are his eyes so cloudy? If it is so quick, why is his heart still beating, even though most of his blood isn’t even in his body anymore? 

But he won’t stop with that fucking smile, those fucking eyes, that fucking hand. He won’t stop. Because here I am, curled around his body, screaming, holding his limp and cold hand to my cheek, staring into his glossed over eyes and vacant smile as though if I look enough, he’ll look at me and get up. But that’s the problem with those eyes and that smile. They’re vacant. And they’re stagnant. For good.

Rewind.

Here, repetition is a staple ingredient to the ruination of this life. Wake up to the sound of an alarm that is the loudest thing that you have ever heard. You are wearing the ugliest piece of shit white jumpsuit in the universe, just like everything else in your life. White walls. White ceiling. White floor. White bed. White sheets. White door. And there is _nothing else_. Not even another fucking person. Stand up by your bed obediently and wait. Oh look, it’s a bowl of sludge! Don’t like it? Too bad bitch. It’s your breakfast, now eat up because you’re not getting anything until it’s time for you to go to sleep. Now sit your ass down on the floor and listen to whatever you are told. Don’t understand? Well nothing’s gonna be handed to you on a fucking silver platter so suck it up and deal with it. Your life is these walls. Your life is that empty bowl in the corner. Your life is the experiment. Now stand back up. And go to sleep. You’ll need it.

Well, that was my routine for most of my life. Until it wasn’t. The alarm blared as usual. But when I stood up to look at the pristine white ceiling in anticipation of food, I was met with a boom. As though I were some sort of scared animal, I jumped back and fell ass-first onto the stiff bed behind me. Then the same sound again. And here I was, sitting on my bed with my arms braced behind me, my eyes wide as all hell, scrambling backwards in anticipation of what this could possibly be. The sound again. And again. And again. Until there was crack in the perpetual white that was my entire world. _Gray_. Dust flew from the debris where the wall once stood. Racking coughs shook through my body as the dust invaded my lungs. My jumpsuit a dusty brown and gray. And here I am, god knows how old, laughing my ass off like some maniac while standing in the ruins of the _plain white that pervaded e v e r y t h i n g_.

So I painstakingly lifted my feet, even though my legs felt like lead, and ran. Because even though I was running headfirst into the dark and never ending abyss of the unknown, even though I could have been jumping from one pile of shit to another one, there was the ability _to run_. Every day in that box, even though I might end up running into another one, all I wanted was out. So I ran like hell. And when my eyes were drawn to the bloody bodies on the floor, and the stains on the walls, I shook my head and kept running. And like the bird that escapes the cage, I had no idea what to do afterwards.

And that was when Ari came in.

Ari was a whirlwind of color in my pure white world. The first time we met, I had run around a street corner, still in that fucking filthy jumpsuit, straight into the guy, barrelling over him. I would have kept running, but he looked just as filthy as I did, and not even surprised that some asshole had just knocked him down. The thing is, when you can barely remember the last time you saw another human, you have no idea what to expect. Because the world is always moving. And with, or without you, it will continue. Fail to catch up, and get left behind, never knowing if you can break to the surface of the ocean us fuckers call life. 

So I stopped. 

My feet were already aching from the constant wear that I had never put on them before. From suddenly trying to catch up with a world that left me behind years ago. I might as well find kin. 

So I turned to him. 

And he smiled, surprised. His face, covered in streaks of dirt and oil suddenly looked so much clearer, as though some sort of mental weight had been lifted. His eyes glittered slightly, and I nearly gasped at what looked like flecks of gold in his irises. He had a small mouth that curled into an innocent little smile that dimpled his olive-toned face. And his hair! I had never seen hair before! I wasn’t even allowed to touch my own, even though it grew past my waist. A mop of inky curls sat atop his head, framing the sharp lines of his cheekbones and the soft curve of his jawline in such a way that I wished I could run my hands through it, if only to find out what _hair_ was like. But I stood, frozen by this smiling kid in an alleyway because I was too baffled by my first contact with a living human. “Hello. I’m Ari” he said in a soft tenor, and like the complete antithesis of my supposed "adult-status", my eyes promptly rolled into the back of my head as I passed out cold, and my knees buckled under the dead weight of my body, bringing me down to the muddy puddles in the alley. The last thing I heard before surrendering myself to the purple spots in my vision was Ari’s concerned voice inquiring my state of being, and the rustle of fabric as he picked up my limp body and carried me away.


	2. A Little Switch in Perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ari reacts.

A boy was sprinting through a backwater neighborhood as though there were wolves on his tail. His breath came in short pants that condensed into tiny white clouds before dissolving again in the frigid air. The slap of his bare feet smacking the concrete sidewalk at every step echoed loudly off of the tall buildings around him. If you were to look on, you’d probably think that the kid was in trouble and running for his life. But if you looked closer, you might be able to see the smile on his face, and the mirth in his eyes. He skidded to a halt in a dingy alleyway then looked up to the smog-filled sky.

“I know you’re there,” he said confidently. “Cyrus.”

Another boy jumped down from an old fire escape and tied their long and tangled hair into a haphazard ponytail. They placed a hand over their collarbone in mock-hurt while grinning. “Awwww. I thought I’d got ya!”

The boy just grinned back impishly and playfully shoved their shoulder.

Rewind.

Ari looked at the unconscious teen in front of him in honest surprise. “Hello? Are you there?” He asked, bending down to wave his hand in front of their eyes. When he got no response, he huffed and then grabbed the other teen by the underarms and tried to pick them up. But the teenager only slipped out of his arms and back onto the soggy pavement. Ari placed his hands on his hips and stared at the unconscious body on the floor. “Oh c’mon! Let’s get you outta here” Once again, Ari attempted lifting up the other kid, this time succeeding in holding them up on his back. 

Determined, Ari walked away from the alley, and into a nondescript four-story climb-up building across the street.

Ari rapped on the door five times in quick succession and waited for someone to answer it. Someone behind the door then responded with four slow knocks, to which Ari responded to by lightly kicking the bottom of the door. A burly woman with beady eyes and a near-constantly sour expression opened the door for Ari. “What happened this time kid?” she said in a lazy drawl. Ari just smiled and shook his head. “I think we have a lead on what those white-coats have been doin’ outside the city.” Upon hearing this, the woman turned around and shouted “Hey Geezer! The kid actually got somethin’ useful!” No response. The woman growled and shut the door again. Multiple long minutes stretched by as Ari impatiently tapped his foot on the pavement as he waited, listening to the sounds coming from the door. “They had _another_ fight?” He sighed, “and without me too!” Groaning, he turned around and slid to the floor and leaned forward to study his newfound friend? companion? charge? responsibility? He had no idea what label to ascribe to this person. Tangled hair, darker skin than his own, dirty jumpsuit that appeared to have once been white (?)....definitely a fugitive of a sort. But from what? He rubbed his face with his palms and groaned. This person was probably more trouble than Ari initially realized. Sometimes his instinct to help people and save whomever he could _really_ get in the way of his work, not to mention his and his co-workers’ safety. It was becoming a problem, if he were to be honest with himself. Then again, if he were really honest with himself, then he would have packed his shit and high-tailed from this god-forsaken place years ago. But that's the thing. He's never really honest with himself. Every day, he does his work, runs, hides, breathes, and keeps moving to the rhythm of his mantra: _keep moving and the shit won't hit you this time_. When he first came up with it, Geezer laughed, hollow and rattling in his throat, and gave Ari a yellow-toothed smile and set down the filthy glass in his hand on the scratched bad table. “Nice optimism there boy. Ya jus’ gotta make sure ye don’ go changin’ it anytime soon. Or that shit ye were talkin’ about might actually getcha.” The “shit” is always going to be after him, and deep inside himself, Ari knows it. But he can't acknowledge that, or he might just end up dead all because of his own unsure head. So he keeps it simple. Keep going, do what you gotta do, and then maybe you can turn to see what happened on your way here. 

After what felt like an eternity of watching grey clouds move overhead, the door opened again, and the burly woman was back. She jerked her head at the unconscious teen and then at Ari. “Get in kid. And bring in your new friend.” As Ari walked into the room, the unconscious teenager slumped against his shoulder, drooling, Ari noted with slight disgust, an old man with hunched back and knobbly knees called out to him from across the room. “Boy! Yer back with a” he waggles his bushy eyebrows “friend?”

Ari’s face flushes “It’s not what you think!”

“Never mind tha’” Geezer said, waving his hand in dismissal. “Kate said ye found somethin’ out abou’ those white coats.” The shift in Geezer’s demeanor is so fast that it practically leaves Ari reeling. Geezer pays no mind and continues gravely. “Ye better watch out for yerself Ari. Tha’ _friend_ of yers might bring ye some real bad trouble.” Ari gulps and nods. And the entire time, he still hasn’t taken his eyes off of the unconscious teenager right next to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was honestly so difficult to write holy shit. I spent _months_ on this wowwww

**Author's Note:**

> Now you know why it says "Major Character Death" ;)
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> But that's not the end ;))))))))))))


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